The present invention, herein denominated a table bender controller, relates to an electronic visual aid device which is designed to enhance the ease and certainty whereby an operator of a manually cycled table bending machine Of that type typically used for bending concrete reinforcing bar may make the various shapes employed in concrete reinforcing applications to specification, with greater efficiency and less waste.
Typically, operators of manually cycled table bending machines are individuals skilled in the art by way of on the job trial-and-error training and or the use of bend charts developed through trial-and-error experience, in handling various bar lengths and diameters that must be bent to a wide range of shapes and reasonably close dimensional tolerances, and in most jobs the run lengths are relatively short. Thus, even with a highly skilled and experienced operator it is frequently necessary with a new shape that he trial-and-error bend a particular profile a number of times before getting the right center pin radius and bend hole position on the bending table head, the proper machine speed and most efficient bending sequence, and a "feel" for how the particular bar stock will machine through the bending cycle.
In an effort to reduce operator training time and that experiential developed skill level necessary for efficient and economical bent bar production off a manually cycled table bending machine there was developed a digital readout table bender control head such as that exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,577 to Eley dated Jan. 12, 1988, for bending conduit and pipe, as well as that digital control head shown in a technical sheet of the assignee of applicant herein being KRB Machinery Co., of R.D. #12, Pisgah Rd., York, PA, captioned "TABLE BENDER CONTROL HEAD", designed as either an original or retrofit control for a manually cycled table bending machine employed to bend concrete reinforcing bar. In the case of digital readout control units, such as the foregoing, bend specifications are operator keyed into a control module and tested, which then gives a numerical readout of the bend angle count for each bend and whether it is a clockwise or counterclockwise bend direction. The digital control head does not, however, provide a screen image of the total part profile with bend sequence, nor machine sets and specific instructions for machine operation in order to accomplish each sequential bend cycle of the profile.
The next stage of bending machine control is that such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,161,110 to Ritter et al dated Jul. 17, 1979, which teaches a fully automatic bending operation with the substantially increased cost factors attendant to such a machine and the longer run lengths required to warrant its use.
The integrated combination of applicant's invention for a table bender controller with the typical manually cycled table bending machine, however, effectively and efficiently fills a production void between such machines operated purely by developed skill of an operator or a machine equipped with a digital control head on the one hand and the fully automatic bending machine on the other, while at the same time being adaptable to use with a large number of manually cycled table bending machines and eliminating the need or necessity for a highly experienced operator in order to obtain consistent short to medium run output of specified bent bar production at a substantially increased rate and lower levels of waste, with little chance of error.